Richard Boyd Barrett: Blames Government for Favouring Tech Profits

I'm baffled by the Minister's speech, to be honest, and I think the government should be ashamed of themselves, because they've really shown their true colours here. Despite paying lip service to the issue that's at stake, which is the well-being and mental health and safety of children, of young people, of women, who are victims of this toxic misogyny, which is not just online, as we discovered, it gets translated into brutal physical reality, as will be evidenced in the protests that are taking place up in UCD today, and all of the horrible stuff that the Minister herself acknowledges, that is directed at women, at women politicians, the algorithms that are designed to promote self-harm, to promote suicidal ideation, to promote eating disorders, to promote hate and misogyny, hatred against trans people. You go through the list of toxic content, and what the ministers say is, well, yes, there are some harmful aspects to this, but the status quo is what we are doing. We're going to vote down your bill, and we're going to maintain the status quo, as if anything has been done about this, when nothing is being done about it, as anybody who cares to go online, right now, will find out. And you've decided to do nothing. And it's clear what's being prioritised here. The profits of companies who profit from this hateful, despicable material, who make money, I mean, really, to make money from promoting suicidal ideation, or eating disorders, or hate, that's evil. That, to me, is the definition of evil, what some of these companies are doing. And you've decided to prioritise their profits ahead of the wellbeing and welfare of young people and children and women. That is shameful. That is shameful. And I have to say, to my mind, there is a direct line between your voting down this bill, your refusal to act against the social media and IT companies, mostly American multinationals, not exclusively though, but mostly American multinationals, and the refusal of the government to impose sanctions over the genocide in Gaza, or to condemn what the US and Israel are doing in Iran and setting the entire Middle East on fire. You won't condemn it for the same reason. Because you don't want to upset the US empire. That's it. You don't want to upset these big, obscenely wealthy multinational companies that profit from this sort of divisive, toxic material, or the big military industrial complex that profits from setting the Middle East on fire. Or that profits from allowing and indeed arming and supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Profit first, despite the most obscene crimes, the most horrible things being done, turning our world into a very, very dangerous, dangerous place, we'll prioritise the profits of the people who benefit from all of this. I think that's frankly shameful. And not only, by the way, will we not do anything about it, we'll actually give them money to do it. With research and development tax credits. We'll give them 1.4 billion. We'll give them another 300 billion in the last budget. We'll give them money to research how to do this to our children. That's what we're doing. And, I mean, I was at the press briefing of RT workers yesterday, who were fighting to defend their jobs and public service broadcasting. And don't get me wrong, I sometimes have problems with the decisions that RTE make. But my God, give me RTE over X and Meta and Google and Facebook any day of the week. Any day of the week. So while they're being dismantled and privatised and their work being outsourced, essentially to be replaced by these guys who profit from pumping this poison at our society and our young people and so on, we'll take the money off public service broadcasting and we'll hand it to these companies and we won't say boo to them. We won't say boo to them. In terms of regulating stuff which the government itself acknowledges is harmful. But we won't do anything about it. And that even commission a man who you say, oh, they're dealing with it, had recommended turning off these recommender algorithms. Force feeding. Because we're not in favour of a ban, by the way. We're not in favour, because the children get around a ban. It'll actually make it more attractive. Anybody who knows anything about young people knows that, right? But the young people, by and large, and all the polls show, they don't want this stuff force fed at them. They want to make their own decisions. Right? So banning it is not the answer. What is, is about standing up to these guys and not letting them profiteer by force feeding the poisonous stuff at our young people. And commissioning the man was recommending that in the first draft of the online safety code and they took it out. Why? Because of the lobbying of the companies. And we know that because it's on record that they lobbied about this to take it out. So it's just straightforward. Capitulate to these people because they're profiting from it. And then our society picks up the pieces in terms of our young people's wellbeing and mental health being assaulted by these toxic algorithms to the detriment of children, of young women, of vulnerable groups in our society and to generally the detriment of our society in creating a divisive toxic atmosphere which is getting ever worse. So I really think the government should be ashamed of themselves for doing this. the priorities you've decided on. But like I say, there is a consistency in the government's policies.